Avian Lumina: Process and Progress Updates

I’m excited to share some process and progress updates about the puppet theater piece I’m developing, called Avian Lumina. As I mentioned in my first post from Indonesia, this project is a reflection on my experiences of 9/11, as we approach the 25th anniversary.

Throughout my sabbatical, I worked on developing a script that is textless: no words, all images, with a lot of shadow puppetry. I’ve received a great deal of help from my collaborator, Katie Hopgood, who is also the composer for the piece.

This post is about finishing the Witness, a direct-manipulation puppet. She’s now painted, has hair, and has a costume. I’ve also been working with former student Alex Li to build the tabletop puppet theater. The script has continued evolving throughout the spring and summer as we prepare to perform the piece in the Duderstadt this September.

The Witness

The Witness is done, and I’m really happy with how expressive she is. She’s definitely a little more of a self-portrait than I think I originally intended, but that’s okay. I’m still not sure how I feel about the glasses, but we’ll see. They definitely make her feel even more realistic, even if she is two feet tall and made out of papier-mâché and rattan.

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I used Tyvek to make the Witness’s hair. After painting it, I built it almost the way you would build a wig, looping it directly onto the framework of the skull with little slipknots. Then I went in with a magic marker to give it a little more depth.

The Tabletop Theater

The design of the tabletop puppet theater was originally conceived as a tunnel book that can fold up and collapse. Whether we use the full mechanism in the performance, I’m not sure yet, but the structure is basically all cardboard and tape.

Because one of the enduring images of 9/11 is falling paper and office paper, it’s important to me that so much of the piece still holds onto the materiality — the “paperness” — of everything. We’re not hiding the fact that the theater is the color of a paper bag. I’m also using Tyvek, which is very paper-like but doesn’t rip, which is extremely helpful. Tyvek is also used for the projection screen on the upstage part of the tabletop theater. There is a batten with a window frame unit that defines the apartment space in Act 2 and can be played upstage or downstage. 

One of the first elements I designed back in November was the Twin Towers using some simple paper engineering. An early concept that has proven to be an important touchstone to the whole project is that an actual hand will crush each tower during the performances. How and when we see human hands is a question we have returned to throughout the process.

Narrative Structure of the Piece

The structure of the play is currently organized into three acts. Act One is exposition and the lead-up to moving to New York in the 1990s. Act Two is the date itself: September 11, 2001. The Witness steps into the playing space, which is essentially our apartment in Brooklyn. Act Three is the aftermath, and the transition into the decision to leave New York. It is a story of migration and resilience.

Katie provided really helpful guidance about basic narrative structure, which is something completely new to me. My process for developing the script began in January, when I simply recorded the story of my memories of that day in no particular order, just remembering things as they came to me almost 25 years later. From there, I converted the audio into a transcription and cleaned it up. Then I went through and made a list of beats: moments I thought would translate visually, and things that felt important to include. I used a template called Save the Cat to think about where those beats belonged structurally. That meant letting go of my exact memory in service of a stronger narrative structure.

After organizing the beats into acts, Katie and I reordered some things for better flow. I took that list of beats and fleshed them out into a rough script. I then created a very rough, scribbled storyboard while I was in Indonesia. That Sharpie-and-pencil storyboard helped reveal where the gaps were, what might not be necessary, and what was feeling redundant. It also raised questions that needed collaborative input.

So the script developed in stages: audio recording, transcription, beat list, ordering the beats, rough script and then a rough storyboard.

Katie and I met again in the spring, and that led me to clean up the script more fully. Because there is no dialogue, the “script” is really a spreadsheet.

What matters is capturing what’s happening on the screen, what’s happening in the playing space, and notes about sound, lighting, and physicality that function as stage directions.

From there, using ProCreate, I worked on a much tighter and more specific storyboard, which I used to generate shadow puppet designs, screen content, and a focused color palette. Right now, everything is in a form that can be converted into show content.

A Collaborative Turning Point

All of this work led to an amazing collaborative meeting a few weeks ago. The artistic team gathered together: Katie, who helped get me this far along and who brought sketches of a soundscape; Helena Kays, who is the director and very much a co-leader. I really appreciate Helena’s ability to clarify structure in a piece like this, which is largely devised. While Avian Lumina is very much my brainchild, I also very much need her expertise in movement, stage picture, and direction, especially since I’m going to have to be a performer in the piece. And, Jess Fialko, who is the lighting designer, and who is also serving as the technical director. Jess has been playing "in the shadows" with me through the Arts Initiative C-Lab project as well as a HS Summer MPulse program.

We had a three-hour workshop meeting where we talked through the whole world of the piece and went beat by beat through the beginning of Act Three. We ended up cutting a couple of scenes and identifying several smart visual adjustments I will need to make or adjust. We were also able to look at some projected content, use the actual playing space, and work with some of the puppets. That meeting gave me my charge and task list for the rest of the summer.

What Comes Next

At this point, we’ve cast two students who will be performers, as well as another student who will serve as a combination stage manager and assistant director. Alex has been making shadow puppets this past month and will be finished with those very shortly. Right now, with about three weeks before we’re back in the Duderstadt, I need to collect objects that will function as props and be manipulated in the piece. This will lead up to another big collaborative meeting in August. Then Katie, Jess, and I will go over to the Duderstadt and work there for two hours to figure out the logistics of lighting, sound, and the technical requirements of working with the cameras in the space.

Then, at the end of August, we will start staging with the performers. I’m very excited, and I’m very grateful. It’s difficult material, but the team is amazing. I think we all left that meeting a couple of weeks ago feeling grateful for the kind of collaboration where you lose track of who had which idea. The baton just gets passed around. Everyone throws ideas out there, and everyone is incredibly generous, gracious, and supportive.

I’m excited to be able to share it.